Child Schooling and Work Decisions in India: The Role of Household and Regional Gender Equity

Abstract

This paper tests three hypotheses about how mothers' autonomy in India affects their children's participation in school and the labor market. To do so it extends the concept of mothers' autonomy beyond the household to include the constraints imposed by the extent of gender equity in the regions in which these women live. This study began with the expectation that increased autonomy for Indian mothers living in heterosexual households would increase child schooling and decrease child work. However, the results are mixed, indicating that mother's autonomy can be reinforced or constrained by the environment. The paper concludes that mothers and fathers in India make different decisions for girls vis-à-vis boys and that the variables reflecting mothers' autonomy vary in their impact, so that mothers' level of education relative to fathers' is not often statistically significant, while mothers' increased contributions to household expenditure decrease the probability of schooling and girls' work.     

Household Decisions and Equilibrium Efficiency

A general equilibrium model is introduced where a household may consist of several members, each with individual preferences and/or resources. When households obey collective rationality, certain intrahousehold externalities can be fully internalized by the respective households so that competitive exchange among households is efficient. As a rule, however, such intrahousehold externalities are not fully internalized by individual household members acting in their personal interest so that competitive exchange among such individuals is only efficient in exceptional cases.     

Tests of Income Pooling in Household Decisions

Using the Progresa data from Mexico, we investigate intrahousehold decision making using a variety of outcomes. We exploit both the experimental nature and the (short) panel dimension of the data to measure the impact of exogenous changes in the intrahousehold distribution of resources on household decisions. We test for global pooling of resources within households, which would correspond to the unitary model of household decision making. We also exploit a set of questions about power and the decision making process in the household to investigate aspects of strategic interactions between household members. Our findings confirm previous rejections of income pooling. We also cannot reject that the wife's relative income share is a significant determinant of the wife's decision making power in the household, with a higher share of income associated with more decision making power. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J12, D13, H31.     

Fertility Decisions and Gender Differences in Labor Turnover, Employment, and Wages

A striking observation of the U.S. and other labor markets is the weak position of women in terms of job attachment, employment, and earnings relative to men. We develop a model of fertility and labor market decisions to study the impact of fertility on gender differences in labor turnover, employment, and wages. In our framework, individuals search for jobs and accumulate general (experience) and specific (tenure) human capital when they work. They can also increase their wage by moving to a job of higher quality. Labor market decisions (e.g., job acceptance and job mobility) may differ across genders: females that give birth may decide to interrupt their labor market attachment in order to enjoy the value of staying at home with their children. The model economy is successfully calibrated to match aggregate statistics in terms of fertility, employment, and wages. We find that fertility decisions generate important gender differences in turnover rates, with long lasting effects in employment and wages. These differences in labor turnover account for almost all the U.S. gender wage gap that is attributed to labor market experience by Blau and Kahn (2000, Journal of Labor Economics15(1), 1–42). The model also implies a very small role of tenure capital in accounting for wage differences between males and females (gender gap), and between females with and without children (family gap). Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E24, J13, J21, J31.     

Disasters,Household Decisions,and Insurance Mechanisms: A Review of Evidence and a Case Study from a Developing Country in Asia

This article investigates whether and how Asian people's exposure to a variety of disasters undermine their decisions and welfare. Our case study from Vietnam, based on household panel data, shows that households adopt a variety of coping strategies against the damages caused by disasters especially through credit and labor markets. While the consumption risk sharing networks function effectively at the commune level, market and non‐market insurance mechanisms are not sufficient, especially at the regional, national, and international levels. Hence, it is imperative to strengthen market, government, and community based insurance mechanisms to diversify aggregate disaster risks at the individual, national, and regional levels in Asia.     

Peace in the Household: Gender,Agency, and Villagers' Measures of Marital Quality in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Although development studies have emphasized quality of life, the quality of marriage remains uninvestigated. This study challenges the bargaining model by arguing that theories of marital quality, derived from women's voices and subaltern knowledge, should be integral to feminist economic theories of marriage and intrahousehold gender relations. Findings from a longitudinal (1999–2009) ethnographic study of microcredit loanee families in rural Bangladesh reveal that Muslim women believe high marital quality or togetherness leads to peace in the household. This local model of marriage is central to the moral economy of social life. The study identifies eight local measures of marital quality that define what low-income women think a good Muslim husband should be like. The study concludes that the peace-in-the-household model emphasizes the transformation of masculinity as a program strategy that should be implemented in microcredit households in various parts of the world.     

碳排放、家庭与城市发展

本文利用我国2006年74个主要城市的面板数据,对各个城市一个标准家庭的碳排放进行了有效估算并进行排名。结果表明,在以标准家庭碳排放为唯一衡量指标时,淮安和宿迁是最“绿色”的城市,大庆和牡丹江是最“灰色”的城市;即使在最“灰色”的城市大庆,一个标准家庭产生的碳排放量也仅是美国最“绿色”城市圣地亚哥的1／5;城市人口规模、人口增长、收入、气温和城市化发展模式等因素对碳排放均有影响,家庭碳排放量与一月份平均气温显著负相关。     

Destined to Receive: The Impact of Remittances on Household Decisions in Armenia

The paper uses data from Armenia to test the implications of remittance flows on behavior of receiving households. We find that remittance‐receiving households work fewer hours and spend less on the education of their children. While saving more, these households are not leveraging their savings to borrow from the banking system to expand their business activities. This evidence suggests that the benefits of remittances might be overstated and emphasizes the importance of measuring their impact in a general‐ rather than a partial‐equilibrium context.     

Gender Development, Institutions, and Level of Economic Development

Gender inequality and the lack of gender development are major problems in developing countries. Neoclassical economics has generally argued that economic development will greatly enhance gender development. However, more recent work has emphasized the role of institutions. In this paper, a distinction is made between malleable institutions and those that change only over long periods of time. Empirical estimations of the impacts of economic development, malleable institutions, and hard-to-change institutions on gender development are carried out. The results indicate that both economic development and reform of malleable institutions are important determinants of relative gender performance. However, non-malleable institutions and cultural practices limit the impact that reform and economic development can have on relative gender performance.     

"互联网+"下的包容性金融与家庭创业决策

文章利用中国家庭跟踪调查(CFPS)2014年度数据,采用离散选择模型和两阶段最小二乘方法,从广度和深度两个方面研究了"互联网+"下包容性金融对家庭创业决策的影响.结果表明:"互联网+"与包容性金融的融合发展将通过"信息流"融通"资金流",降低家庭创业融资中的风险,增加其正规金融市场参与度,从而提升一般家庭的创业可能性,特别是对城市家庭、高收入家庭和受教育程度高的家庭的创业决策具有明显的促进作用;此外,"互联网+"与包容性金融的融合发展还将使家庭更积极地投身于机会型创业活动中.文章进一步检验了"互联网+"下包容性金融影响家庭创业决策的正规金融融资偏好渠道和风险偏好渠道的有效性,这对于在当下的"双创"工作中改善创业者的金融支持环境具有重要的意义.     

Fragments of Development: Nation,Gender, and the Space of Modernity

Adam Smith argued that capitalism was best achieved when individuals temper their economic self-interests with ethically grounded motivations. Unfortunately, Smith stopped short of articulating precisely how individuals might manage these seemingly competing interests in a way that is practical for actors in modern day organizations. We believe that a set of effective principles of justice can be found in the writings of political philosopher John Rawls. We argue that due to the empirical realities of entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial context is aligned with Rawls' original position. We consider how Rawls' principles might inform founders of new organizations with regard to their interaction with organizational stakeholders.     

糙木家居产品初探

简约环保已成为当今家居设计的潮流。糙木作为低碳、环保、生态、自然的原材料正好符合这一主题。分析了其产品特征及糙木家居产品艺术形态塑造的基本方法和糙木在家居产品设计中的广泛应用。为糙木家具相关设计与理论研究提供相应借鉴。     

Financial and Capital Account Liberalization,Financial Development and Economic Development: A Review of Some Recent Contributions

Abstract

This article presents a review of some recent contributions on the relation between global finance and economic development in emerging economies. It first, stresses the growing consensus among economists on the financial instability that financial and capital account liberalization can possibly cause in emerging economies. It then outlines and compares two alternative strategies to tame such instability. The comparison is between the “good-institutions need-to-come-first” approach put forward by some mainstream economists, and the request for a deeper reform of the existing monetary system advocated by heterodox economists.     

“知识分子负担”与家务劳动——劳心与劳力、性别与阶级之一

20世纪80年代关于“知识分子负担”的讨论凸显了脑力劳动（业务工作）和体力劳动（家务劳动）的矛盾,使家务劳动的问题成为一个阶层的特有负担,而遮蔽了性别的问题。重读80年代的小说《人到中年》可以读出以下问题：家务劳动在话语上怎样变成了一种负担？陆文婷为什么只能代表知识分子,而不是女性？谁是家务劳动理想的、合适的承担者？“知识分子负担”的话语如何为保姆进城搭台？对小部分家庭而言,雇佣家务劳动是用阶级的关系“解决”家务劳动中性别分工的问题和家务劳动社会化不足的问题。社会主流对家务劳动的定位、认识和处理反映出改革时代的现代化进程中,脑体、城乡和男女这三组社会差别的重构。     

Remittances and Household Expenditures on Education in Ghana's Northern Region: Why Gender Matters

Studies of the impact of migrant remittances on receiving households assume that these households act as a unit in receiving remittances and making decisions about their use. Thus, many of these studies use the gender of the household head as a key control variable. This study questions this assumption, using original qualitative and quantitative data on rural–urban migration of women in Ghana to show that gendered social norms of household provisioning influence the intrahousehold flow of remittances. Regression results indicate that migrant women are more likely to send remittances to other women, creating female-centered networks of remittance flows even within male-headed households. The implications of this for intrahousehold resource allocation are explored through an analysis of the impact of the gender of the remitter and recipient on education expenditure. The results show that regardless of the gender of the household head, households in which women are the primary recipient of remittances spend more than twice as much on education as households in which men are the primary recipient.     

Gender Wage Gap: Some Recent Evidences from India

Gender wage inequality is a chronic socioeconomic malice in developed as well as in developing countries. This paper describes the outcomes of our study on the estimation of gender wage gap in the Indian labour market, using the 68th Round NSSO employment–unemployment data. The study uses Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique and Heckman two-step methodology, for removal of selectivity bias in the sample data, to measure the components of total gender wage gap, viz. (1) occupational segregation (explained by economic rationale) and (2) direct discrimination (not explained by economic rationale). The analysis indicates that the maximum direct discrimination is for job-related factors, such as industry type which are controlled by employers. The majority of the Indian employers today are men, which may be the reason for the insensitivity to the chronic direct discrimination against women in workplaces. The study also indicates that most of the explained gender wage gap is due to lower skill and experience amongst women. The findings suggest that besides labour law reforms for ensuring gender neutrality in workplaces, focused government policies for promoting women entrepreneurship and skill development of women are urgently required for reducing the gender wage gap in India.

     

Women's Work Choices in Kenya: The Role of Social Institutions and Household Gender Attitudes

This study considers the factors that influence women's work behavior in Kenya. In particular, it examines whether gender attitudes and certain types of social institution influence the probability of employment or type of employment for women. Using data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2008–9, it finds that religion and ethnicity are significant determinants of women's employment in Kenya. While personal experience of female genital mutilation is insignificant, spousal age and education differences, as well as marital status (which reflect attitudes both in women's natal and marital families), are significant determinants of women's employment choices.     

Gender Inequality,Endogenous Cultural Norms,and Economic Development

In this paper, I explore the joint dynamics between gender inequality and cultural norms along the process of development. Cultural norms regarding gender roles are shaped by the relative female labor supply, and thus depend on the gender gap in education. In turn, these norms influence the relative education provided to boys and girls. I show that this two‐way causality between the inegalitarian nature of norms and the educational gender gap might explain the emergence of high gender inequality and low development traps. The model also makes it possible to replicate a U‐shaped relationship between the relative status of women and the economic development.